Wolverine plate

Postulate:

The well documented "pavlovian response" in dogs may be key to understanding their evolution from wolves.  

That is, back in supra-olden times, perhaps early humans (~10,000 BCE) utilized some sort of "dinner bell" like type thing, or even just yelled out when it was time to eat.  In either case, the wolf who is primed to respond Pavlovially has a different response and a different evolutionary advantage than one who waits to collect the garbage at the end of the night.  

These Pavlovian beasts interact with the humans, because they know when the food is coming.

Furthermore, they KNOW!  This "gnosis" has got to have an effect on the evolution of the puppy brain.  Any expansion of knowledge within a species is a sign it is ready to evolve. Mosquitos know they love blood, but they do not know much else.  Ducks know the first living creature they see is there mother, bears know how to open jars of honey, etc.  (This leads to thought of a whole other experiment, where you aim to determine the boundary where ducks will imprint... will they imprint upon a docile bear? What about a monkey, or a dog?  A turtle?  A tarantula?)

But anyway, in each case the more "sophisticated" the creature, the more knowledge they possess, even if it is locked in their autonomous sub-conscience.  

This new knowledge of when and where food was available (where the wolf hears just cries or whistles as white noise, the wolf primed-to-evolve-into-dog hears something, they KNOW.  This gives them further context of their space and their time, and helps facilitate the evolution of their brains.  

I googled "pavlovian response dogs" and got 324,000 hits.

I replaced "dogs" with "wolves," and nothing on the first few pages specifically addressed my inquiry, whatsoever.

Go forth and solve!

"We didn't start the fire"

Speaking with someone today who has a fair deal of credibility in the matter, he made two points of interest about the current economic crisis.

First, he claims that the $700 Billion is a low estimate, and a more accurate estimated cost is $5trillion!

Second, he predicted that unemployment in the US would hit 20% in the next two years.

Those are some crazy numbers, and I hope he is wrong, on both fronts.

I made the point that the rush to the $700B bailout is reminiscent of last month's RUSH to authorize ocean drilling. That is, the mentality seems to be that "we must, simply must, fulfill as much of our radical agenda as possible before the reigns slip from our grips."

Someone made the point that the NeoCons are just fulfilling their long stated mission of bankrupting the government to cyclically justify "smaller government." Honestly, I am continuously shocked, these days, as to where I hear such conjecture. It is not the punk rock ravings and ragings of myself and my peer group, as it has been at times over the past eight years. This stuff is consistently coming from late middle aged adults, business men and doctors. I am usually somewhat shocked into silence, both when I agree and disagree.

I know it must be bad, because one of the most staunch conservative gentlemen that I know, one of the "bitter enders," as it were, spoke deridingly about looking forward to hearing what Bush had to say this evening. I think he even used the words "clueless."

I mentioned how I had seen Bush on the Daily Show last night, and he seemed as confused and out of his element as I have ever seen him. I said "he looked like it was 1999."

And what is this act of John McCain's? No debate this week? Are you crazy! I hope this cynical bullshit backfires in his face, and I also hope that the country excercises restraint in tackling this issue in the short term. I find it hard to believe, having followed this issue for a while now, that we have less than two weeks to act, and we have to do so without any oversight or judicial rights, or financial armageddon will be upon us.

Bush, in his big speech, talked about how people have been worrrying about their financial outlook over the "past couple of weeks." This just highlights his ineffective ignorance. People have been facing these issues for months or more, and the warning signs were well imminent before that.


Finally read the infamous George Will article from a couple of days ago. Worth the read.

Absolutely, OK, Definitely, Who knew?

Nervous ticks...

So sometimes (like, all the time) I develop tics where I just use the same god damned phrase over and over and over again.

It sucks, because it makes me sound like a bullshit artist, which I try not to be.
This is bad w/: potential employers during interviews, in-laws, police officers, elected officials, business owners, judges, coaches, employers, friends, pets...ok maybe not pets.

Speaking of judges (and pets) though, I have been called upon to perform my civic duty as a Juror on Monday. I actually had to postpone starting a new p/t (writing) job because of it. A job not won, I assure you, on the strength of anything you have ever read here.

I really enjoyed the format of the show this evening. I feel really comfortable in the acoustic position of no mic or amp. It really frees you up to not have to sing into a mic. You gotta project like a motherfucker, but it's worth it, cause that's the way one should sing anyway. Mediocre, and even good microphones, can be a hinderance in projeting to one's fullest. Yes?

Mad, mad props to Ryan & Eileen for coming out tonight (all the way from West Chester), as well as to James and Todd and Ally. Was hoping to see more faces, but I would say in terms of quality of performances and crowd enjoyment it was a pretty good night.

Let me know how the drinks were! Any suggestions, critiques, or lavish praises are welcome.

Alex Valejo & Dan McCool next Friday night. And next Thursday night is the premiere of the open (no) mic nights. 10-12 or so.

So I asked for critiques on the drinks, but I assume I am correct in assuming that only the best of things will be said about the food, which looked great coming out.

As Luigi conveyed to James, "this is the kind of bread that will put lead in your pencil" and I think he is right.

The menu is really affordable and sexy. The most expensive thing on it is an $8 Veal Parm Sandwich. In fact, the drinks are mostly more expensive than the food. But you can get a Yuengling for $3.5, which in this economy, ain't bad.


Absolutely.

bd

Hi Bobby,

Thank you for all your help, as always.  
I WILL be recording the show, in some form, and will in fact post that. 

Yeah man, anything you can/wanna do to help me spruce and line things up is appreciated.  What do you think I should do in terms of location (ie name) ? 

I am down with either of those two that you suggested.  My conflict is a desire to shy away from the "frolic" monicker in print, due to the existence of that other dude billy frolick, who (though he clearly wrote his own wikipedia article) despite my grumblings, has established quite the career for himself, I suppose.

I figure if I aim that use towards the musical side of things, perhaps that is a good idea?  

Then again, there is a

"Bill Dougherty"

who writes as a thoughtful author, and is actually pretty good, in the way that he is, and yet seems like he could have been me writing at age 14 and doing it well, as opposed to however I in fact did it.  

Obviously,

bd.com
is taken by the health giant.  Though bd.biz is available.

But then there is

bd's Mongolian BBQ

which has been around for awhile, to their benefit, but MUST have stolen their logo from scribbles on my high school notebooks. (more like college notebooks)

So that leaves me where?  One thought I have, kinda separate from the blogging conversation, is the use of a pseudonym for book writing, which the best of current trends points towards "Driggs Baer"  
(alt McKinley Coltish??).

But that idea (& no doubt driggsbaer.com) could come down the lane, as a place for me to release the first book in serial form, and even take comments on suggestions, edits, etc. 

This brings me to a website idea I have, which I will edit out of the version of this email that I use as this evening's blog.  Thus, transmission for most readers cuts now.   

Continuing....

3.) Call me crazy if you will.  After all, last week at James & MC's, I had an epiphany about how great it would be if PIANO KEYBOARD TIES ACTUALLY WORKED AND PLAYED LIKE A PIANO!!??  I was quickly told that my million dollar idea was worthless, at least to me, b/c keyboard ties already make noise.  Who knew!??!  I'm an idiot.


bd



ENDNOTES: Show tomorrow! Me, Danny & Benny acoustic! You probably won't ever see this again.